SELECT
    ID,
    ISIN = MAX(CASE ALTERNATE_TYPE WHEN 'ISIN' THEN VALUE ELSE '' END) ,
    BARCODE = MAX(CASE ALTERNATE_TYPE WHEN 'BARCODE' THEN...

You have to register your COM component on your database server and not many DBAs are keen on this.

You need to be sure that your COM component is well written...

On SQL2000 you need to avoid XML.

It uses MSXML3 where as the most recent version is MSXML6

The only way that I can think of to do what you are expecting...

look up DBCC CHECKIDENT with the RESEED option.

Avoid XML like the plague.

If you are using BCP there is command line parameter that lets you specify the batch size for each transaction. I tend to set it...

The are effectively a point-in-time template, so although you define a user-defined datatype for a non-nullable integer with a default of 1 this only applies when you create the column...

Was Betamax a failure?

Technically far superior to VHS and much more compact and yet due to market forces it was eclipsed by VHS.

Similarly the last European Ford Escort sold by...

If you have a development server I would test your system thoroughly on that.

I took the opportunity to run a DBCC DBREINDEX when I upgraded some databases to SQL2005.

SQL2005 is...

I take it that you have a separate distributor in your replication set up?

When you switch to compatibility level 90 you may notice that it takes a while as SQL...

The article could almost have a title of "how not to manage a project".

The sucesss of a project depends on managing user expectations and keeping them informed as to...

There are somethings I really like about management studio

• The ability to change the connection for the query window
• The way it exposes additional properties on remote servers that simply aren't available...

The other thing you will notice with SSMS is that it is S.....L....O.....W.

It speeds up a bit with SP2a on it but SQL Query Analyser is still much faster.

Your description is a bit vague.

When I delete large numbers of records from a table then rather than fill up the log file with one massive DELETE I do something...

SELECT * FROM mydatabase.myname.Tmp_FORUM_TOPICS WHERE TOPIC_ID IS NULL

This will find the offending data rows.

You can then determine whether to delete those rows or reassign TOPIC_ID. After doing this you...

The thing with a DATETIME or SMALLDATETIME field is that you have built in data validation for that reason I would prefer to store dates in date fields.

If you are...